


Timestamp

by ladyfoxxx



Series: Time Travel 'verse [4]
Category: Bandom, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album), My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Killjoys, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, M/M, Time Travel, Timestamp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-22
Updated: 2011-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-26 10:26:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/281978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyfoxxx/pseuds/ladyfoxxx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It's not that he doesn't want to believe it. He just can't buy that the shit they've done, just the four of them, could really make enough of a difference.</i></p><p>Written for the Timestamp Meme - ciel_vert wanted to know what happened 5 years after Frank got back from the future in <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/214795">James Cameron Got It Wrong</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Timestamp

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ciel_vert](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ciel_vert/gifts).



_9 September, 2010_

Frank knows he's out of line. That doesn't stop him raising his voice at the poor production assistant, regretting the words the moment they're out of his mouth. He gives a short apology that he doesn't mean and stalks off, needing to get away from all the people and bustle of the shooting crew before he fucks up worse.

He sits on his ass in the sand, in the scant shade behind the diner. He stretches his legs out in front of him, boots unlaced, and leans his back on the warm brick. He twirls the prop gun between his fingers, watching the "horror" stencilled on the side in dripping font flip over, in and out of sight. Like everything else, it's just not quite right. Like the location they're shooting in - sun baked and sandy, but not _dusty_. The diner - dated and kooky, but too well kept - fuck didn't they shoot a Beyonce video out here? He frowns at the gun in his hands.

He doesn't need to look up to know the footsteps he can hear getting closer are Gerard's. He does look though, to find Gerard glaring down at him, his bright red hair glowing like a flame in the sunlight. He's still wearing those stupid short-shorts that are giving Toro nightmares.

"I'm sorry." Frank says it first, with a sigh, because it's easier to just admit he's wrong now than have Gerard lecture him about it.

Gerard's frown relaxes a little, his expression slipping more into concern. He clambers to the ground to sit beside Frank. "What is it?" He asks, too earnest.

Frank sighs again, feeling like the biggest asshole. "They're not heavy enough." He fits his hand around the gun and holds it up, aiming at a detail in the logo painted on the side of one of the crew trucks. If it was a real gun, Frank could hit it with his eyes closed. Instead, he flips it over in his hand in a fast smooth move, to hold it by the barrel and offer Gerard the handle. "It just doesn't feel right. I know, it's stupid."

Gerard takes the fake gun from him carefully and aims it. He keeps his arm straight but loose, and both his eyes open just like Frank showed him all those years ago, their bodies crammed together in a booth at an indoor shooting range. Earplugs and clunky earmuffs cut the sound so much speaking aloud was useless, so Frank could only show him what to do with his hands, guiding Gerard through it the same way Gerard's hands had once guided him. He'd wriggled Gerard's elbow until his arm loosened up, and straightened Gerard's hips with firm hands.

It took Gerard a while to get it, and he complained all the next day about how sore his arm was, but they went back a week later and kept trying.

They can all shoot now. Ray's the most accurate, but Frank's the fastest.

"It's not stupid." Gerard says. He lets his hand drop to his lap, gun still clasped loosely in his grip. He pins Frank with a serious look, "But it's not important, either."

"I know it isn't." Frank doesn't mean to sound so annoyed.

"It's not supposed to feel _real_. Because it's not real. It's not going to happen." Gerard presses the too-light, too-plastic gun back into Frank's hands, guiding his fingers into a grip on the handle. "We're making a new future now, where the guns don't fire, except in post production."

Frank looks at the prop in his hand. He can't even call it a gun in his head, it's just a lump of plastic. When he manages to look up at Gerard, his breath catches in his throat. With his hair this way, the touch of sunburn he's got, and the way the light lines around his eyes are deepened because he's squinting against the sun - he looks more like the Gerard from 2019 than he ever has before. Like the Killjoy who taught Frank all this in the first place. It makes Frank want to believe him, and he has to remind himself that this Gerard doesn't know any more about their future than Frank does, that it's all just blind faith.

"We can't know that."

"It's been a full year since the first pig bomb was supposed to drop, Frank. We fucking did it." Gerard's words are worn out from overuse.

Frank draws his knees up, sending up a small cloud of dust that reminds him of the Zones - of the California that they want to keep at bay. It was a stupid idea to shoot the music video out here, they should have gone to Mexico. "It could still happen, Gee. We might have just… put it off."

Gerard can't argue that point and Frank knows it. Gerard sighs and runs a hand through his hair, then stops to rub his fingertips together where they've turned pink from the hair dye. "Well, that's why we've got the vault in New Mexico, and the one in Jersey, and the one in Santa Monica, and-" Gerard waves an airy hand, "all the other ones."

In the lead up to the judgement day that didn't happen, knowing they had those code-locked vaults full of weapons and supplies was the only way Frank managed to get to any sleep at night. Of course, having Gerard curled protectively around him, his breath warm and calm in Frank's ear, helped too.

"What's it gonna take for you to believe it?" Gerard asks. He's pushing, again, like he always does, but Frank's less susceptible to it than he used to be. He squints out at the horizon, at the telephone poles reaching into the skyline, blurred with heat haze. Distantly, he can hear Ray and Mikey laughing about something, and Jon's voice is in there too, talking excitedly.

"I don't know, Gee." It's not that he doesn't want to believe it. He just can't buy that the shit they've done, just the four of them, could really make enough of a difference. Maybe it's because he's the only one of them who's actually seen what happens to the world. Or maybe he just doesn't have enough faith in them - his band, his brothers.

He picks at his bootlace where it's unravelling. "Maybe I'll never believe it."

That's not so bad, though, really. At least one of them will be expecting it when it all falls apart.

Gerard doesn't say anything, just presses a warm hand to Frank's knee through the hole in his jeans and squeezes, reassuring.

It's enough.

*

 _22 November, 2010_

The kids are screaming tonight.

It bounces back off the venue walls, folds in and over on itself, a glorious cacophony. It pulses through the floor, vibrates the metal stairs under Frank's feet. He stands side stage, closes his eyes, listens to it build and grow, lets it fill him up until his chest wants to burst.

He's so lost in it he doesn't know Gerard's there until he's a warm weight against Frank's back. He loops an arm around Frank's chest, clutching him close, lips warm behind Frank's ear. Frank can feel the anticipation jittering through him everywhere their bodies touch. They've played the tracks before, in baby shows littered over Europe, but this is the real launch, the proper album release.

Here in LA, which is still standing in 2010.

He catches Gerard's hand in his, squeezing their fingers together. He leans back into Gerard's lips as he nuzzles his neck, leaving wet, rushed kisses, too excited for care. Frank pulls their joined hands away from his chest, glancing down at their interlocked fingers. Gerard's nails are bitten and frayed, his hands pale and plain next to Frank's tattooed knuckles. Frank can't help but turn their hands over to bare his own wrist. In the dim light he can barely able to make out the numbers inked there, but he knows them by heart. One date in 2019, the other in 2005.

He tugs Gerard's hand up to leave a kiss on his knuckles, then turns his head to take his lips in a proper kiss, hard and warm. Gerard kisses back, eager, hot and it's the only thing that can dull the screaming in Frank's ears.

Mikey's wolf whistle barely carries over the noise of the crowd. (They're chanting now, "M.C.R. M.C.R!", louder and faster, no signs of stopping.) Mikey crashes into them, breaking them apart before pulling them back together in a hug. Then Ray's with them too and Frank's got his arms around his brothers and the noise of their kids all around them.

Gerard says something into the huddle, his cadence fast and excited. Frank can't hear the actual words, but he gets the meaning. The excitement and anticipation bubbles between them all as they disband the huddle with firm hand squeezes and head pats.

When he steps out onto the stage with the roar of the crowd in his ears and his guitar a comforting weight around his shoulders, it's like someone's reached into his chest a flipped a switch. He gets glimpses of screaming faces as the lights flash, then the playback kicks in and Steve's voice booms through the venue - an echo of a voice Frank only heard once, bathed in static on a car stereo - except this voice speaks words they've dictated.

The words ands screams wash over him as his fingers find the strings.

And, suddenly, he believes it.

*


End file.
